West

DENVER -- Warm, windy weather is raising the fire danger in the Mountain West.

SALT LAKE CITY -- An internal email from the Bureau of Land Management's deputy director discusses his concerns about credit card abuse and possible time-card fraud in the agency's Western state offices.

DENVER — The federal government’s new plan for oil shale development on public lands would keep activity off thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive areas, with new leases initially being issued strictly for research on how to commercially produce oil from oil shale in Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.

WASHINGTON -- The Bureau of Land Management announced today that it will use state and regional data and maps to help it identify wildlife corridors and crucial habitat in future land-use planning and management efforts. The maps will be available for the BLM to use as a result of the Western Wildlife Crucial Habitat Assessment Tool, known as "CHAT", an initiative of the Western Governors' Association.

LAS VEGAS -- The West is recovering faster than the nation as a whole, but employment across the region remained far below pre-recession levels and the housing market showed few signs of improvement, according to an economic report released Thursday.

Some of the worst winds in years blasted the West on Thursday, toppling trees and trucks, kicking up blinding dust across highways and bringing hurricane-force gusts of more than 100 mph in the mountains.

HELENA, Mont.  — The Obama administration is calling for 18 new wilderness and conservation area declarations in Utah and eight other Western states, according to a report released Thursday by the secretary of the Interior that he hopes will result in new legislation from Congress establishing the new land protections.